The ship was not "built" in the traditional sense, but rather "grown" from an object known as a design seed. The seed contained all the schematics and plans required to construct the ship, as well as the ship's slipspace shard, a piece of a much larger crystal used by the Forerunners in their slipspace drives.

Most of the raw materials for the hull of the ship were apparently drawn from the central peak of Djamonkin Crater. The mountain was first dismantled and turned into several pillars arranged in a circle with an elevated platform in the center.[2] As the Didact, Bornstellar, Chakas and Riser stepped onto the central platform, the pillars began to spin rapidly, changing their shapes to form the hull of the ship.[3][4]

The vessel was highly advanced, even by Forerunner standards. In its fully constructed state, the ship was an ovoid approximately 1,000 meters long. Approximately one third of the ships mass was composed of fuel and engine reactants. The remaining space was used to accommodate personnel and could be configured at will, using various forms of hard light.[5] It was stated as having enough space for 5,000 Warrior-Servants.

↑Halo: Cryptum, page 97 ("The circling pillars sprouted bulkheads, beams, and stanchions - all the necessary parts. The skeleton of a slipspace voyager was growing around us, almost too rapidly to track - until the pillars were walled in, the sky and the swirling ships vanished, and we were completely enclosed.")